Darkness and Light
by Indigo2831
Summary: Tag to 8.19, "Taxi Driver." In the aftermath of the second trial, Dean asks Sam one simple question - "how are you feeling?" - but he's not remotely prepared for the answer. Angst abounds.


**Hi! I actually wrote this a week after "Taxi Driver" aired, and finished it before "Pac-Man Fever" aired. There are some similarities to the episode and a few differences...all coincidences. Please let me know what you think. **

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**Darkness and Light**

Dean stole yet another glance at Sam, his heart clenched with unfettered gratitude as he absorbed his brother's rumpled, weary profile. Even after a tour of the afterlife, with hellacious stops in Purgatory and The Pit, an attack by Crowley, Sammy was still standing, scanning Garth's safe houseboat with the EMF meter. He looked appropriately shellshocked and as he squinted and frowned at the device. "How close are those power lines we passed?" Sam asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Close enough to futz with the readings," Dean muttered. "I smell sulfur though, so you think demons outsmarted the wards?"

Sam shook his head in a minimum of movement. "It's me," he admitted with eerie calm. "Hell smells like sulfur...and torment." The air between hung heavy, pregnant with the realization of where Sam had been, and the torture they'd both endured.

Dean let the anger guide him back from those wretched memories. "I knew that kid was scalin' the bell jar," he slammed his fist against the table, relishing in the cold burn. "I was gonna haul him back to the bunker with us for a few days...after the hell tour."

Sam breezed by him, walking the narrow perimeter of the dank, rusted-ruined tub with the EMF meter, his face etched from grim determination. Dean regarded his brother carefully. They'd set Bobby free, and that had released a weight in Dean that he didn't even realize he was carrying. Now, with the loss of the tablet and their unstable prophet in the wind, he was overwhelmed and emotionally spent. And he couldn't imagine how Sam was feeling.

Exhaustion always made him a little more emotional, and a lot more honesty, and right now, the tension was rolling off of him in tsunami-esque waves. The ensuing knowledge that without the tablet or its translator, they couldn't slam hell shut and Sam, who was weakened and sickened from the first trial, was going to suffer until they could. This is why Dean never trusted or depended on anyone, because he was almost always spectacularly let down.

Dean whirled around at the sound of the dragging scrape of cotton on metal to find Sam sliding down the wall, eyes vacant, breaths ragged.

He swooped in to catch Sam, but Dean Winchester wasn't meant to be anyone's savior today. Sam landed on his bottom with an audible thwack. Dean was by his side in an instant, heart in his throat. It was only slightly reassuring that Sam managed to keep himself upright with a hand splayed flat on the floor.

His head was lolling, rolling down to his chest. His long hair falling in shadowed stripes over his face. Dean cupped his cheeks with both hands, trying to get Sam's eyes to focus. Sam looked strangely silver, thanks to the the ashen pallor of his clammy, cold skin. "Hey! Hey!" Dean barked. "Stay with me. You've been on too many trips without me, little brother."

The heels of Sammy's boots that still bore the fetid mud of Purgatory and the sulfur of hell scraped against the floor of the boat, and he shakily breathed in and blinked, trying to clear his head. Just when Dean's teeth were about to crack and he was going to scream from the torment of the last thirty hours, Sam blearily looked at him.

"Are you hurt?" Dean asked.

Sam stared at him as if he hadn't understood the question and then shrugged with one shoulder. "Probably...m' kinda numb..."

Dean pocketed the parts of the smashed EMF meter and his own cell phone. "Can you make it to the car?"

Sam's jaw twitched. "Gotta find Kevin...Dean, the trials."

The Great Winchester Offensive was crumbling like the ashes of the dozens of funeral pyres, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could do to help Sam, who was suffering for it. Benny was sentenced to an eternity of warfare. Bobby heaven-bound, but still gone. Mary was avenged, but still dead. It was enough to decimate the strongest of men and the most majestic of angels.

But Sam was still there, running on stubbornness and adrenaline, and needing his big brother. And somehow, everything else faded into an irksome fog. "It won't take me long to catch the scent of our prophet...you know how bad he smells," Dean said, draping Sam's arm around his neck. "But I'm taking care of you first. You're more important, Sammy."

Dean would never remember the ride home, only the bone-deep gratitude that they finally had one and that Sam stayed awake the entire time. "Just two more minutes, man, and you can knock out for as long as you want," Dean promised.

They shuffled down the stairs, through their foyer and library and into Sam's bedroom. It was smaller than Dean's but far more decorated. There was a picture of him and Jess my his bed, a crappy print-out he'd grabbed from a friend's Facebook page and framed. Books piled and stacked everywhere-the rickety table held Sam's favorite novels while the older, bigger research volumes were piled up by the foot of his bed. Oddly, Dean was struck with the distinct urge to build him a proper bookshelf. There were posters on the walls, postcards from dinky little rest stops-a catalog of their life and their travels, the fun times, not the hunts. Dean would always resent that he didn't recognize a good third of the destinations.

"We're gonna sit down, okay? Nice and easy." He said softly.

Sam bit down on a pained squeak as they began their careful descent. It had been hours since they had completed the last trial, and although Dean had few details about what happened, he knew that it had been a breakneck snatch-and-grab, with Sam fending off attacks from demons, vampires, and a few of purgatory's undiscovered freaks. Dean worked off Sam's filthy torn jacket and button-up as carefully as possible with slow, deliberate movements.

"Jesus."

Jagged abrasions limned Sam's left shoulder, elbows and upper back while warm, crimson bruises tracked a mottled path down his torso, darkening over his ribs. Dean gingerly palpated the worst of the bruising, eyeing Sam carefully. "Broken?"

Sam looked stunned by the pain, fingers curled into the memory foam. "Felt it snap."

Dean grimaced as he went to work on the shoulder, disinfecting the wounds and applying a smear of antibacterial before a light bandage. His brother had been back for hours, but Dean could smell the wretched stink on his skin. Sam was still shaking, eyes grating back and forth to the corners of the room, even as he sat there wounded and bone-weary. "We're safe here, Sam, you know that, right?"

Sam just dropped his head and closed his eyes, breathing rapidly from his mouth.

Soon, Sam was too worn out to sit upright, so Dean lifted his long legs up and slid them over before he darted forward to catch Sam's flagging shoulders. The painkillers hadn't kicked in yet, and his face was twisted in a rictus of drowsy discomfort. He settled him on the pillow, smiling at Sam's heartwarming sigh that he was finally, warm and flat and safe. Dean swaddled him in the blankets, pulling out his mangled mess of an arm that had smuggled Bobby's soul across the void. It was gouged, singed and in need of stitching.

Sam watched him, eyes fluttering in languid blinks. They hadn't really spoken about any of this, but there would be time. Dean smiled as he worked a towel under his arm and began cleaning off the congealed blood. Sam watched him with wet hooded eyes until he finally slid off into slumber.

Dean went to work disinfecting and numbing the nasty lacerations, trying not to think too much about how Bobby had been there, and Sam had seen him. He tried not to feel jealous that he hadn't. He knotted and threaded the needle of the medical grade suture kits they now had the money to buy now that they weren't nomads shuffling from motel to motel, diner to diner anymore. As he'd completed the the first stitch, Sam jerked, eyes wrenching open, Bobby's name dying on his lips. Startled himself, Dean nearly gouged himself with the needle. "Whoa!"

Sam's chest pumped like bellows, and Dean grabbed his mangled arm, reeling him before he flailed off the bed. "Relax, Sam...hey, man, look at me, front and center, dude."

Eyes dark with terror finally met his. "You're back, Sam, you're safe. We're at home." Dean placed a hand on his chest, above his galloping heart. Purgatory was a violent, visceral lesson in fight or flight, and all of his gears were cranked to FIGHT. Dean knew that sometimes Sam needed permission to be scared and effected by the never-ending nightmare that was their lives. "You...you don't have to be okay, Sam, not after this."

Sam licked his dry lips and and sighed, voice breaking, eyes filling a little when he whispered, "Today really sucked, Dean."

Dean abandoned the stitching to focus on the wounds that would probably never heal. He rubbed his chest and smiled sadly. "I know, Sammy, I know. And I've never been more proud."

-SPN-

He was falling, end over end, through earth and rock, through mist and rain, into a wretched plane that was forged of iron and suffering, and reeked of the marrow of men. Hands groped and tore at his flesh, pleading for redemption. A woman, who had been freshly flayed, clung to him, her lipless mouth begging for salvation. When it was denied, her skinless hands, all tendons and bone, crawled at his face and tore at his neck. They converged then, an undulating mass of broken souls turned violent and demonic, ripped and shredding.

Cooper cooled his tongue as sharp coughs tore out of him. Rough hands maneuvered him and something damp and soft covered his mouth. Sam panicked, trying to escape, until he heard Dean's calming voice. "Easy, Sammy. Take it easy."

He opened his gritty eyes to the thankfully lowlight of his bedroom, to a body that felt brittled by sickness and pain, to a brother that looked as wrecked as he felt, to a mouth that was filled with blood.

Dean had tipped him on his side and wiped his mouth clean. "You've been coughing all night," he said with an inscrutable tone.

The towel he was using was clean, but the sheets were dotted with dark crimson. "How you feelin'?"

Sam blinked, head pounded his brain to sludge. "Awesome," he deadpanned. "Whatime isit?" he slurred, hoarse.

Dean looked offended and worn down himself. "_Thursday_."

Sam's last memories were of Dean screeching Manic Monday on the way to meet the rogue coyote. "Oh."

"I'm going to get you, like 80 buckets of water, and you're staying in bed until you're darker than the sheets, okay, Sam?"

Sam swallowed, a heavy finality settling in his chest. He smiled at his brother, who still had the gall to look hopeful and eager and grunted, "Sounds good."

He surrendered to Dean's pampering, laughing when his brother actually bought him breakfast in bed on a friggin' silver tray he'd found in the vaults of loot. They watched DVDs on the laptop and kept things light. The batcave was their own personal safe haven from the darkness that loomed beyond. They both relished in it, knowing the darkness would find them all the same.

And it did just three days later. Sam was still kitten-weak and slumped in bed after been grounded by Dean.

"You never answered my question, Sam." Dean said, sitting down on the bed after a nap of his own. "And you're not bouncin' back like your normally do. So I'm gonna ask again, and I'm getting a straight answer this time: How are you feeling?"

He'd stalled long enough. The coughing had subsided, doubled back and transformed into a lazy wheeze, sickly breath that caught painfully in the back of his throat. It had been three days and he'd only been out of bed to shower and relieve himself, and even then he couldn't manage more than a slow shuffle. Sam had been waiting for the right more to bare all of the secrets, but now that it was here, he wasn't ready. "Something's happening, Dean, and it's not good...I'm changing. Something's worming its way in, and my body's not taking it too well," Sam confessed. "I'm cold all the time, like from the inside out. My fingers and toes...are numb. I know they're there, but I c-can't feel them. It's hard to breathe-it hurts to breathe, actually." He corrected, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have see Dean's horrified face. "Beyond all that...I'm happy."

Dean did a double-take, tears in his eyes.

"I'm happy because...this is all on me and not you. I'm happy that it was my turn at bat...and I'm gonna knock this one out of the park. But I don't know if I'm going to..."

He rushed to interrupt. "You made me a promise, Sam. You said you you'd survive this...we finally have an endgame, Sammy, I believed you."

"You know what Cas said…this can't be fixed." Sam felt a tear slip down his cheek, and drew in a tight breath. "I'm still gonna show you the light, I just have to do it a little faster that's all. But Dean, I'm finishing the trials. No matter what I have to do. And I'm gonna need you to make good on your…promise to get me through it."

Dean bowed his head, shoulders shaking with rage and fear. And fight. He'd pulled Sam back from the brink and beyond before, and he could do it again. Angrily, he swiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, looking up to school Sam on exactly what was going to happen, how they were going to kick this in the ass, laughing while doing it, and then drive off into the sunset, get the ending they deserve. All that came out was a bitten-off squeak. Because Sam was asleep, sunken eyes closed, mouth parted, body bowed with pain. Dean sighed, a few tears licking down his cheeks as he pushed a hand over Sam's too-cold, hollowed cheek, sweeping his stringy hair off his face. When he spoke again, it wasn't to Sam or even Castiel. "I know you can hear me, old man, you have one more job to do. If Sam pops up there on a cloud...you gotta do your best to knock his ass back here, okay..." He gripped Sam's hand, watching the uneven intake of breath and wondering how his brother looked so small. "But if you can't...make sure he finds Jess...and Mom and Dad, okay? You're a damn good hunter, Bobby, and I think I need you to do one more."

_Fin_


End file.
